


But I Really Don't Know How

by grasssea



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8427163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grasssea/pseuds/grasssea
Summary: Sleeping isn't easy for the defenders of the world-especially-the-bit-near-Coal-Hill. Luckily, they don't have to be alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched this show and it's great and I love it. April is kind of my favorite but they're all special to me.

Her heart is beating steadily, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for any human on earth besides her.

She can feel the pulse of blood in her fingertips and hair follicles, above and below her sternum. Her heart is there even when it isn’t, half solid and half a ghost but still mostly doing its job.

That fortunate fact hasn’t convinced her body to stop panicking every time her heart fades completely out of existence.

April can predict how it goes now, the sudden seizing of her lungs, the gasping, grasping terror that has her clawing at her bedsheets, the pain in her chest and arms as her body scurries to deal with what it perceives as a sudden disappearance of a major organ- totally ignoring the fact that her blood is still rushing about on its merry way, having taken a minor detour through all of time and space to get from one side of her heart to another. It always wakes her up, which is probably for the best, she doesn’t want to know how her sleeping subconscious would deal with the accompanying images and feelings.

(Anger, mostly, and fear as well. They’re both afraid, her and the shadow (her shadow). Having half a heart is the sort of thing that terrifies people.)

Times like these, so soon after an attack of temporally-missing-heartitis, there’s little she can do but count her heartbeats and _breathe_.

In time her chest stops aching and her breath comes a little easier and she can sit up and shake the shadows out of her head, turn on a light, and go looking for company. At night company is by necessity of the virtual kind, but it’s better than being alone.

(She knows from experience now that the bursts of pain and psychic interference come intermittently, the chances of another one before morning are slim. But sensibility only goes so far, and in the dark fear so often wins out.)

Ram is online, and he hits the call button seconds before she can. Comfortable silence reigns for a few minutes after they flicker and crackle onto each other’s screen, then;

“Couldn’t sleep?”

April shakes her head. “I tried, but my heart wasn’t having it.”

“Nightmares here,” Ram admitted. “Are you okay? Anything new about the Shadowkin?”

“Yes and no.” she answers carefully, folding her legs under her and tilting the computer screen forward a little. “How are you?”

He shrugs. “I just wrote a few thousand words for my mock essay, but I think most of it is rubbish. God knows how we’re expected to deal with our A-Levels like this, monsters coming out of a hole in time to try to kill us every few weeks and an alien for a physics teacher.”

“I don’t know,” April counters philosophically, “Ellie Landers a few years above us did hers even though she had cancer, didn’t she?” It’s one of the things she’s been hanging onto, the idea that however ridiculous things may be, surely someone somewhere has handled worse.

“I’m not sure they’re comparable situations,” Ram scoffs. “For one thing we don’t have everyone tripping over themselves to help us- no one else in the school seems to care that people go missing on the reg, and even if they did they don’t know it’s our sworn duty or whatever to stop them. Nobody’s paying us any mind.”

There’s bitterness in his words, and exhaustion. They’re tired on a bone deep level. Soul tired, heart tired. 

“We know.” she says, leaning back on her elbows and staring at her ceiling.

“Like that’s going to help when we’re applying for university, if we even live that long,” Ram grumbles, but there isn’t much effort put into it. April thinks that they’ve all sort of given up on the future in the abstract sense. Living minute by minute is the most sensible thing to do when you’re aware that at any moment you might get murdered by a shadow or an interdimensional dragon.

They settle back into companionable quiet, Ram flipping through a workbook and April studying her physics notes as the night ticks on.

When Charlie messages her around midnight with a, “Is everything okay?” she types back, “yes. couldn’t sleep but ram is up too” and invites him to the call.

Somewhat to her surprise he appears, pajama clad and tousle haired, a shirtless Matteusz hovering over his shoulder.

Ram raises an eyebrow in April’s general direction (or what she thinks is her direction in his screen) but takes it in stride.

“I see you two decided to join the party.” he quips, “Matteusz, did you understand the Maths homework?”

“Mostly.” Matteusz says, his voice crackling, the connection breaking up a little under the weight of an extra computer. “I think I missed some things in class though.”

“Same.” Ram sighs. “I’ll ask Tanya tomorrow, her brothers should be back at university by then.” April thinks that's at least half of why Ram is so antsy, Tanya's family being in town means she's more distant than usual. After the Lankin any gap in communication has them all on their toes. 

“Are you both well?” Charlie asks, somehow managing to sound diplomatic with a visible hickey. “It is quite late.”

“I keep dreaming about my girlfriend dying and April has a murderous alien in her head, but other than that we’re great,” Ram says offhandedly, still frowning at his book. “I’d ask what you two are doing up at this hour but I think there needs to be some boundaries, even among monster fighting companions.”

April buries her head in a pillow, half to hide her blush and half to stop from laughing out loud, emerging only when she hears Charlie’s worried voice.

“.... are you alright?” he asks, leaning in and reminding April vividly of psychologists throughout her childhood. He has a grownup sort of face, and a forehead that wrinkles with perfectly professional concern. She forces a smile, tries to look well adjusted and coping, for her sake as well as his. His people's murderer is her co-heartee, after all.

“I’m fine.” she assures him, watching Matteusz disappear and then reappear, shrugging a shirt just a little too small for him on. He's been wearing a lot of Charlie's clothes lately as his fight with his parents drags on. “It’s just hard to sleep these days, for all of us, I think.”

“True.” Matteusz says lightly, placing a hand on Charlie’s shoulder and affecting a stage whisper made all the louder by the static hiss of the videocall. “He sleeptalks.”

The idea is ridiculous enough to make even Ram smile, an alien prince from a world far, far away, babbling in his sleep like April’s great aunt Helen does.

“In English, or some alien language?”

“ _Not_ in English.” Matteusz confirms. “I think. Definitely not in Polish.”

“It’s a side effect of my disguise.” Charlie says primly. “Rhodians don’t sleep like humans do, but my human body wants to, so it compromises.”

April stifles more, slightly sleep deprived, giggles, knowing her mother is nearby and needs her sleep. Ram is grinning himself silly, and even Charlie and Matteusz look entertained, if only with their disproportionate amusement.

Ram’s smile falters and his brow furrows as he asks, “Wait, so does Miss Quill...?”

“We’re not actually sure,” Charlie confides. “She has a room down the hall, but she never uses it for much. One time  thought she was napping in the armchair, but she moved as soon as I got close.”

“It _would_ explain why she’s so grumpy.” April says, and feels rather sorry for her, despite everything. Miss Quill had been a fighter back on their homeworld, hadn't she? Maybe sleeping came less easily to her than it did to amiable, agreeable Charlie.

“I think she takes little naps.” Matteusz says. “In between classes. That's what I would do.”

Ram stretches his arms up and yawns widely, a flash of teeth freezing for a second on April's monitor. “Forget Quill, I’m going to need to nap all afternoon at this rate.”

“The chairs in the library during free period are good,” April tells him helpfully. The librarian likes her, and the library is well lit. It feels safe there, and safety has been hard to find lately.

“Go to sleep,” Charlie advises, “Both of you.” Matteusz is already tugging him away, back to their bed, so clearly the sleep talking isn’t that much of an issue. (She'll buy Matteusz earplugs anyway) At this point April would put up with spirited recitations of Shakespeare if it meant having someone with her in the dark.”

“Shove off,” Ram says, but it seems to mostly be on principal. April waves goodbye to both boys as Charlie hangs up and her screen adjusts accordingly, Ram’s bleary-eyed face growing to fill it once again.

“We really should go to sleep.” April says, half hearted in sentiment as well as reality.

He blinks, “I will if you will.”

She runs a hand through her hair and looks again at his serious, sad face, dark eyes focused on the book in his lap. April moves the laptop to her nightstand, takes five deep breaths, and feels her heart hammering away in her chest.

“Go to sleep, Ram.” she says, before crashing back down into her pillows, not even bothering with blankets despite the autumn chill.

Her lamp is still on, and she can see the glow of her laptop screen next to her, even through her shut eyelids. Ram hasn't gone to sleep yet, is still humming a pop song idly, but at least he's calm. It’s just as well, really. There isn’t much reassuring about her own heartbeat these days, but it’s nice to know someone else’s is still thumping on.


End file.
